Farewell: Kayla Madrigal

After my four years of high school, all I can say is that they have been exciting, scary, and eventful years. I have seen myself at my worst moments and my best. All I have to show for them is a piece of paper and the memories I have.  

I have to say thank you to the teachers that have seen me struggle and who pushed me to become the person I am today. A special thank you goes to Coach Campos, who encouraged me to continue my schooling and running.  Also, to a teacher that was never my teacher but was always there to help me, Mrs. Walker. She would help me when I needed to talk or express how I was feeling.  

Now that my four years are up, I will gladly continue my journey through life. 

First Track Race of the Season

March 9, 2022 was my first track meet of the season for my senior year. I had two events to run. The 3200 (two mile) and the 1600 (one mile). For my first event was the 1600. I warmed up with my teammates who were also running it. Then we did drills to warm-up our bodies to prepare for the race and not pull a cramp or injure ourselves. I placed 6th in the mile and my time was 6:53.  

After the race, we had to cool down so our bodies would not cramp up and become sore.  I was done with my event so I went to go grab my camera so I could take pictures of the team while they were running. I took these pictures for my yearbook class because I needed them for my track page.  

For my second event I did the two-mile, which was the longest on the track and it was boring and hot outside. There were four girls who ran in this event, but there were supposed to be two more. They did not race because they were injured. My teammate Dalia and I were the only ones from our group who competed in the two-mile. We both did our mile warm-up and came back and did drills. It was a fun experience going out there and running my two events and cheering for my teammates. 

Ali Telles, Dalia Garcia, Matt Gonzalez, Ari Hernandez.

The struggles of working at Chick-fil-A

Working at Chick-fil-A (CFA) has its pros and cons. Yes, we get amazing pay and get to meet many nice people. But we also get overworked and have to deal shift leaders that forget to give us lunches and breaks and managers who schedule us on our days off. Yes, CFA is an incredibly happy place for most people, but I believe that some of our “guests” (aka customers) don’t understand that we’re human and we do make mistakes.  

When I first started working at CFA I used to say, “You’re welcome,” but my manger “Henry” made me repeat, “My pleasure” 20 plus times until I didn’t say, “You’re welcome" anymore. One of my co-workers' named “Karen” told me that she had to repeat, “Hi welcome to Chick-fil-A” until she repeated it perfectly. It seems that Henry made her stand there for two hours, repeating the phrase while he yelled at her. 

Another frustrating time at CFA is when me and my co-worker “Vanessa” was serving for five hours straight without any breaks.  My coworker Vanessa and I always start our shifts at 5 and end at 10 o’clock. We always have our breaks around 7 or 8 pm at the latest. It was summer, it was hot, and we were not allowed to leave our stations to get water. The night lead came in to cover the shift leads 30-minute break because she hadn’t gotten her lunch. I asked the night lead why Vanessa and I hadn’t gotten our break. She said because the previous lead crossed our names off, this shows other leads and managers that we already gotten our breaks. Two weeks later,  Vanessa quit, but I’m still at CFA, letting guests know that “It’s my pleasure to serve them.”